Paparazzi, Please Pass the Sassafras...

Gather around everybody, I want to admit something.  I'm going to come right out and say it... "Great, just in time for the parade coming up -- you can carry the colorful banner..."   Well, here goes: I enjoy gossip magazines every once in awhile, but not all the time, okay?  Just every so often... "You?  Mr. High and Mighty?  You read the rags?  You stoop to such lowly levels?"  Look, I can't lie, I'm not into chicanery...  "Hey, Chicano Studies isn't for everybody..."  Anyway, as I've honed my skills for celebrity research, I've learned that many celebrity parents feel compelled to put their kids on strict diets from Day One.  "What about Day Zero?  Day Zero never gets any credit.  For that, there should be zero-tolerance!"  Uh yeah... I think of all those fun-food deprived kids and I can only thank my lucky stars... "You mean, Carl's Chicken Stars..."  Okay, right... For that reason alone I'm glad I wasn't raised in a celebrity family...  "Watch what you're saying, there are some perks: round-the-clock attention, limo rides to school, rubbing elbows with spoiled-rotten kids already in therapy -- it doesn't get better than that."  You heard it here first: not allowing celebrity kids a fun-filled diet will bring America to its knees.  After all, we are talking about tomorrow's leaders...   "But what about the day after that?"   I read about zany celebrities and their kids' no-nonsense diets -- my childhood would've been so empty, to say nothing of my stomach, if my parents had reared me in a similar fashion.  "Please, you should be the last to speak about fashion..."  There's no way my brain would be what it is today if it hadn't been for my unrestricted childhood diet...  "Lucky us..."  For that, I salute my down-to-earth-parents.  "Oh please, stop with the dietary drama..."  I'm serious.  I can't imagine growing up without first-thing-in-the-morning pan dulce,  or chorizo con huevo -- or weekend menudo!  "I still say Ricky Martin should've stuck with 'em..." Yeah, I'm glad my folks were never high profile celebrities, forcing wacky fad diets down my gagging throat:  "You no leave this mesa if you no finish los macrobiotic vegetales!"   That would've been crazy, right?  "The thick accent, yes..."  While I appreciate celebrities' concerns for what their kids put in their mouths and bodies (for the most part), my parents didn't spend much time worrying about such things.  Whenever I got an allergic reaction to certain foods, my dad would merely shrug his shoulders and say, "Ponte Vicks."  That was his cure-all.  It still is.  "Yeah, I remember...  And where you applied the Vapor Rub was totally up to you..."  And now that I think about it, my parents wanted me to see dinner while it was still alive. Especially on our many trips to Mexico, where they had me witness cows and pigs and chickens being 'prepped' for that evening's meal. Why, I've never seen so much blood, so much upfront gore in my life -- other than Tarantino flicks.  It's a miracle I didn't grow up disturbed.  In fact, if I may say so, I turned out okay.  More than okay.  I turned out to be a pretty stable, fairly even-keeled guy.  Yes, very much so, no doubt about it... "Uh, let me ask you a question buddy:  Growing up, are you positive you didn't try Charlie Sheen's homemade lunches?"